Wednesday, 5 December 2012

Watz Online - 5 Dec 2012

Singapore concerned over China’s South China Sea rule

Singapore expressed concern today over China’s plan to board and
search ships sailing in what it considers its territory in the South
China Sea, as tension grows over Beijing’s sovereignty claims in busy
Southeast Asian waters.

“Singapore is concerned about this recent turn of events,” the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in response to a recent Chinese media
report on new rules that will allow police in the southern Chinese
province of Hainan to board and seize control of foreign ships that
“illegally enter” its waters from January 1.

Wealthy Singapore, home to the world’s second-busiest container port, is
the second Southeast Asian country to publicly express concern over the
new rules after the Philippines on Saturday condemned the Chinese plan
as illegal

The controversy over the issue of academic freedom at the Yale-National
University of Singapore (Yale-NUS) liberal arts college has flared up
again in the United States.

The American Association
University Professors (AAUP) has published a letter on its website
expressing "growing concern about the character and impact" of the
Yale-NUS College, while Singapore Opposition politicians aired their
concerns at a panel discussion at Yale University's New Haven campus
last week.

Among other things, the association has called
for transparency in terms of releasing all documents and agreements
relating to the establishment of the college, slated to open in August
next year.

The Bureau of Immigration will no longer issue alien certificates of
registration identity cards to Filipinos with multiple citizenships
because the authorities have discovered that the cards are being used to
conceal Philippine citizenship.

“State policy dictates that we should not condone deceit or
misrepresentation on vital citizenship information,” said Immigration
Commissioner Ricardo David after the bureau’s alien registration chief
Ronaldo Ledesma noted that his office has been receiving ACR I-Card
applications from Filipinos who have dual citizenships.

Ledesma said the applicants are usually Filipinos who are either
married to alien spouses or children of foreigners and those who
involuntarily acquired dual or multiple citizenships.

BERNARD McGRATH, the Australian paedophile wanted by a NSW court on
more than 250 child sex charges, has again escaped law enforcement
agencies, fleeing Sri Lanka this week.

McGrath, wanted since June, was reportedly living on a tea plantation in
the highlands of Sri Lanka, having skipped out of New Zealand ahead of
an order for his extradition to Australia.The controller general at Sri Lanka's Department of Immigration and
Emigration, Chulananda Perera, confirmed on Sunday that McGrath had
fled the country.

It is understood McGrath took an overnight Singapore Airlines flight to Singapore late last week.

Singapore expects economic growth to slow down to 2-3 pct in future: PM

Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien
Loong has said that the government is no longer aiming for "
ridiculously high" economic growth like those seen in the past
years, but rather a more sustainable rate of about 2 to 3 percent
per year, local media reported on Monday.

Lee said at a conference of the
ruling People's Action Party that Singapore's growth rate used to
be 7 to 8 percent per year, and 5 percent on average over the last
decade.

"Now, if you can do 3 to 4 percent,
I think that's good. As our workforce grows more slowly in future,
even 2 to 3 percent will be considered good growth," Lee said.

read moreSingapore expected to invest more in Iskandar MalaysiaUEM Land Holdings Bhd
says more investments from Singapore are expected to flow into Iskandar
Malaysia in the coming years as the economic growth corridor
progresses.

More than 10 million cigarettes carrying a recognised brand have been
found packed into a sea cargo container from Singapore, which claimed
to hold ceramic tiles.

They were destined for an address in Sydney.

A
discussion paper prepared for federal parliament as it passed tough new
laws earlier this year to jail tobacco smugglers warned the new plain
packaging measures coupled with duty free allowances being slashed "may
lead to an increase in the amount of tobacco being smuggled".

The Maldives government on Monday rejected a Singapore
court’s stay on the termination of an airport contract that had been
given to a consortium of India’s GMR Infrastructure Ltd and a Malaysian company in 2010.

“The government’s decision is very clear. It is non-reversible and non-negotiable,” Masoon Imad,
media secretary to the Maldives president, said in an email. “Our
decision was based on legal advice we got from our lawyers in the UK and
Singapore... We believe the judge was incorrect in interpreting the
law. A court cannot issue such an injunction against a sovereign state.”

The laws of Singapore and the UK are very clear and don’t permit an injunction when compensation is adequate, Imad said.

Foundry chip maker Globalfoundries
has announced that it will lay off about four per cent of its Singapore
workforce, cutting 300 jobs as a result of weakening macro-economic
situation in the country.

The announcement was made along with
Globalfoundries' roll out of its long-term initiative to expand 300mm
manufacturing capacity in Singapore. The initiative is called "Vision
2015" but the company did not provide a budget for the project.

Globalfoundries
said it intends to tune the Singapore mix of existing and new process
technologies to better serve growth markets and to position
Globalfoundries as a partner to companies that need advanced analogue,
digital, high-voltage and RF functionality. The initial phase of the
plan will include a capacity expansion of Fab 7 300mm facility to be on a
trajectory of nearly 1 million wafers per year. The expansion is
expected to be completed by the middle of 2014.

Newspaper reports called 1955 "Singapore's blackest year of
industrial unrest", with 271 strikes recorded as of November that year.

Using recollections collected by the Oral History Centre of the
National Archives, Benita Aw Yeong shows you why Singaporeans have zero
tolerance for illegal strikes.
Hock Lee Bus Strikes and Riots (When: May 12, 1955) What
happened: A strike broke out at the Hock Lee Bus Company after 200
members of the Singapore Bus Workers' Union were dismissed.